Reading, T.V. & Poker

I spent the morning reading an interesting book, The Outliers. The book investigates the reasons that certain people rise to very high levels of accomplishment. It seems that intelligence is important, but only up to a point. What is equally or more important is the circumstances in which you were raised, the time in history you were born, the access that you had to pursue your talents.

Bill Gates, for example, was able, from the time he was thirteen to spend thousands of hours on the computer fooling around with programming. If he'd been born a few years earlier it would have been impossible to do so, considering the limitations in time one could actually use a computer. Also he was raised near a university that enabled him to pursue his interests more easily.

The Beatles incredible level of success, according to Malcolm Gladwell, the author, can be attributed to the time the band spent in Hamburg where, because of unique circumstances, they were able to play together for six or more hours a day refining and perfecting their music. If they had stayed in England, they would not have had this amount of time together hindering the development of their special chemistry.

After reading a few chapters, wondering what special circumstances impacted my life, I moved on to my next activities of the day: television and internet poker. I watched an episode of the Tool Academy and then caught up on the last three episodes of Secret Diary of a Call Girl.

After eliminating ten tools, the Tool Academy is down to the wire. There were only three tools left. In case your not familiar with the show the tool academy is a reality show; it determines which of thirteen horrible and abusive boyfriends has the most hope of actually establishing a meaningful relationship.

Each week one of the guys, the biggest tool, is eliminated for proving that he has no hope for reforming. His girlfriend then must make a decision about whether or not she wants to stay with him. I'm looking forward to the final episode next week.

Secret Diary is an English show (beautifully filmed) about a high priced, intelligent call girl with a big heart who loves her work and is also trying, so far unsuccessfully, to live a normal life. She is willing to do almost anything for money but keeps on getting herself into situations which cause her to question her life style.

The sex scenes and situations are stimulating and well done which is a problem for me because I am simultaneously playing no limit hold em poker on the internet. This requires a high level of concentration, and the pots run into the hundreds of dollars. I am a good poker player, The circumstances of my life meant I started playing at the age of eight, in the hallways of my building in the projects, and have spent thousands of hours over the past fifty plus years honing my skills. I won forty dollars today. I have been playing on the internet for five years and have managed to hold my own, although I can't say that it has been really profitable. Combining poker with quality reality T.V. makes me feel better about how I am using my time.

In case you know me personally, and are reading this blog, and are concerned about my choices, I am planning on making some lifestyle changes. I would like to make some money . I may need to start playing live poker or try to develop my own reality show.